14 January, 2007: BLACK BUCKS OF GANJAM

There are a few villages in southern Orissa- Ballipadar, Buguda and Bhetnoi, where the locals worship and protect black bucks, much like the Bisnois of Rajasthan. Legend has it that a long time ago, when the area was facing a severe drought, twelve of these elegant antelopes arrived in the area and rain followed shortly. The villagers thus, consider them to be 'avtaars' of the goddess Laxmi and worship them. Once, during the British Raj, a Maharaja shot a black buck here. The villagers caught him and paraded him through the village with a pot in his hands (his new age Bollywood and other blue-blooded cousins better beware!)!.The animals live on the villagers crops and the villagers consider this auspicious. Head of the Blackbuck Protection Commitee and Sarpanch of Bhetnoi, Amulya Upadhyaya says that they lose almost 30% of the crops to the antelopes. The area hold well over a thousand black bucks at the time of writing. Here are some 'record shots'.

These two males offered some good observation... when we arrived we saw the single horned one... his buddy was fast asleep... all was going well until the double-horned one woke up, saw us suddenly, freaked and ran.

We didn't get many female pics of the females... they were wary, probably because they had fawns, and wouldn't come within 300mm tele range.

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Text and images © Aditya C. Panda, 2008

RUSHIKULYA- Watching Olive Ridleys in Sea

13, January 2007

A pair of Olive Ridleys mate off the Rushikulya coast

Purunabandha is a village near the mouth of the river Rushikulya. This is part of the largest Olive Ridley sea turtle rookery which historically stretched across Orissa's coast. Now mass- nesting or "arribada" occurs only at two places- Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary and Rushikulya. It has stopped happening in the Devi river mouth since about a decade now.

A Ghost Crab

Rushikulya is not a Wildlife Sanctuary and the turtles are monitored and protected by a group of dynamic young villagers headed by Rabi Sahu. They have formed a committee called the "Rushikulya Sea Turtle Protection Committee" or RSTPC. Mass nesting hadn't started when we visited and we got to see only mating congregations. Rabi very helpfully arranged a boat for us and showed us RSTPC's highly informative and very well equipped interpretation center.

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